


Just You, Just Him

by cuethe_pulse



Category: One Piece
Genre: Deathfic, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-28
Updated: 2013-07-28
Packaged: 2017-12-21 16:11:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/902255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuethe_pulse/pseuds/cuethe_pulse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You don’t know what to do with everyone gone, and neither does he.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just You, Just Him

You don’t know what to do with everyone gone, and neither does he.  
  
You remember when you couldn’t get a moment alone with him, when all you could do was look at him a certain way from across the table at dinner and hope he understood, hope he got the message, hope he showed up in the crow’s nest or the washroom that night and hope no one else messed it up because they were always doing that, they were always interrupting without even knowing there was anything to interrupt, they were always _there_.  
  
Now they’re not. You remember the way they left, each and every one of them, but you try not to.  
  
It’s too quiet with just the two of you. You thought that maybe it would be one endless fight and you still don’t really know why it isn’t. Maybe your hearts aren’t in it, or maybe you’ve run out of creative names for his eyebrow, or maybe you just can’t get that irritated by him anymore because he’s the only one you have left.  
  
Sometimes you can’t stand the silence. You lift weights, you meditate, but you ultimately end up going to him and he’s probably smoking, he’s smoking now more than ever, it’s hard to smell anything but smoke these days.  
  
“Talk to me,” you always say, and sometimes you even beg when you’re desperate.  
  
“About what?” He always asks, _always_ , even when you always have the same answer.  
  
“I don’t care.”  
  
Usually, he recites recipes. He looks off somewhere while he does and he knows you’re not really listening, not completely following; he knows that’s not important. If not a recipe, then he shares a memory about his pre-pirate life and occasionally tries to make you do the same, but you rarely do. Sometimes he talks about the others, and you let him, because you know he needs to.  
  
Other times, he says he doesn’t want to talk, and he kisses you, nods when you start to undress him. The two of you don’t have to be quiet when you do it now, and when he remembers that, it’s better than talking. His moans seem to fill all the empty space and you never want to stop, you want to hear him forever. Your stamina was always good but it’s even better now, usually you don’t let it end until one or both of you passes out. The heat of him, pressed close against you, inside you, around you, it reassures you that he’s still here, you still have him; you don’t know what you would do without it.  
  
Sometimes he cries. You don’t know if he wants you to notice or not, so you pretend like he doesn’t unless it gets out of hand. And sometimes it does get out of hand. Sometimes his cries turn into sobs and sometimes he sobs like he’ll never do anything else and you start to worry you’re going to lose him to those sobs and his body will never stop shaking. You hold him, dig your fingers in, grip him so tight he bruises, and sometimes you start to wish that they’d never been there so you could be enough for him and he could be enough for you and then you feel the guiltiest you’ve ever felt in your life. Sometimes you cry, too.  
  
You do little things to pass the time together. You act like you’re trying to steal food so he can whack you with a spatula, or sometimes a frying pan. You let him yell at you for something you said to the one of the girls, years ago. He makes your favorite meal fairly often and he wears the cologne that he knows makes you feel a little weak-kneed. You lie on your backs and bicker lazily about where the constellations are and you’re usually wrong so you just end up climbing on top of him and nibbling on his neck while he laughs and pets at your hair.  
  
One night, he says, “I love you.”  
  
He’s never said it before and you’re not sure how to handle it, so you stare at him until he snaps at you to stop, and then you say, “All right.”  
  
He calls you an idiot and kisses you, and it doesn’t come up again, but after that he starts fading. When you first notice, you ignore it and it’s easy because it’s something simple, like the top button of his shirt is suddenly gone, even when the rest of the buttons disappear, it just means you have to rip the shirt open to get to him. When his fingernails are gone, you say nothing, and he doesn’t point it out, but you know he’s waiting for you to do something; he’s waiting for you to do what he’s done and for the first time in a long time you’re able to get mad at him again but even that doesn’t last.  
  
When his feet are gone, he can’t wait any longer.  
  
“Would you just—”  
  
“No.”  
  
Everyone else has moved on, but you don’t want to, you’re afraid, you are finally truly afraid of something. You stopped being afraid of things so long ago. You weren’t afraid to die, and dying wasn’t all that bad because you all ended up together and you hadn’t expected that but you were happy, but now that’s gone, _they’re_ gone, and you’ve learned how to be afraid again.  
  
He knows and he takes your face in what’s left of his hands and makes you look at him, all of him, makes you realize he’s going like the rest of them, he’s really going and he doesn’t want to leave you here alone, you asshole, so _please_ just—  
  
“I love you.”  
  
You say it, you cry it, you sob it, you fill the empty space with it; he sighs in relief and holds you tight and the bruises he leaves behind are the first things that disappear when you start fading after him.


End file.
